I have been using Travelocity for a long time with some decent savings results. This morning I encountered a problem that required me to actually call to speak with an agent. The call was very frustrating and because I clearly detected an East Indian accent I asked if I was calling India and she said yes. I am so disgusted that so many of our service centers are being outsourced to foreign countries I don't know what to do. I discovered I could get the same fare by going through United's website but I am aware they too are supposed to be outsourcing their reservation centers to India. Am I alone in my frustration.

Well,millie, we're all going to have to get used to overseas outsourcing; we're all going to be affected by it whether we travel or not. My daughter has a U.S. government-backed student loan that is administered in Afganistan. My company outsources its engineering to India. Even magazine subscription call centers are located in the asian sub continent today. My understanding is the wage differential between U.S./Canada and India is 90% job by job; and the differential continues to widen. And there is absolutely nothing the average consumer: you and I, can do about the globalization of formerly U.S. jobs.

Isn`t expedia now located in India too? Think I read that a while back

You can either pay more for tickets and travelling or you can get deals, but figure that have to cut costs somethwere and that probably means personnel.

I have a few labor unions as customers pf the business I work for, and I do believe in the old slogan, "Buy American, the job you save may be your own".

I wish the people in developing nations all the luck in the world in bettering themselves, but not at the expense of jobs in my own country. I try very hard to buy American made clothing and other goods. My reaction when I go into a place like "Old Navy" and only find foreign made goods is: "Go peddle your goods to the people in the countries that manufactured this merchandise!"

Most of these companies don't NEED to cut custs, they only WANT to.

rb

But it is also the case that American companies are trying to sell their products overseas - my company makes networking equipment, and China is one of countries we are eyeing, but the Chinese government told our managers "If you want us to buy, we want a piece of the pie". So we have of product development work is now going to China in addition to India. Guess my point is if we do want other countries to buy American products, that is hard to do if we say , we are not buying anything you make.

I can understand that some companies need to compete in a world market, but it is hard to justify some of this outsourcing when top execs are raking in the dough while cutting costs at the expense of those upon whose backs the company was built. I used to work for a huge multi-national corporation who continually posts huge profits, hosts annual sales meetings in exotic locales at top resorts and gives away insane incentives to the highest echelon employees. They have been systematically closing offices across America, replacing salaried office workers with contract and temp employees and, yes, farming out the meat and potatoes to India and Mexico. When my job went to Iindia it did not bother me as much as those employees who had given huge chunks of their life-- 15, 18, 22 years--to building that division to where it is today. And I have seen some of the new product. It is of a much lower quality than that which produced. But the stock keeps going up, up, up, along with executive bonuses.

indie -

yes, I can understand a bit of quid pro quo on trade, but our US imports vs our exports is HARDLY balanced. It has become too lop-sided.

I can understand the government reluctance to utilize tarrffs or other restrictions that we would certainly see reciprocated.

I fear that the only wat to balance is for individuals to make decisions on their own that the small savings on the foreign product is not worth closing down another factory in the next town. I practice this even locally, always trying to purchase from other members of my chamber, and banking with the small local bank. That online retailer or travel agent will never be doing business with my company; the local guy might. I suppose it sounds xenophobic, but I consider it more as civic responsibility.